With its profits up 8.7 per cent in the past six months to £184.8 million and an interim dividend increased by 15.1 per cent per share, Kelda was clearly an attractive proposition for the consortium which has just bought it for more than £3 billion.

Bradford-based Yorkshire Water, Kelda's biggest component and a major local employer, is the most important part of the package. Earlier this year it was ranked by OFWAT, the industry's regulator, as the second-best water company in the country.

Much of that success is down to the efforts of its employees and management team. Nearly 1,000 of them work in Bradford and live in the district. They must now be hoping that the reward for their efforts will not be a programme of rationalisation by their new owners as they strive for what a spokesman has described as "further growth and investment potential" for the benefit of its customers and other stakeholders.

There is bound to be some relief that a statement today from Yorkshire Water, which is based in Halifax Road, indicates that no job cuts are expected and that it remains very much business as usual.

Not withstanding the current controversy over anti-flooding measures in parts of the county, the company has an excellent track record in recent years. It is to be hoped that Saltaire Water, as the new consortium is called, fully appreciates the quality of the business and people it is about to acquire.